Journalist and musician Barbara Caserta of Italy’s Linearock conducted a 30-minute video interview with drummer Mike Portnoy (THE WINERY DOGS, DREAM THEATER, AVENGED SEVENFOLD, ADRENALINE MOB) prior to THE WINERY DOGS‘ concert at Live Club in Trezzo sull’Adda, Milan, Italy. You can now watch the chat below.

Asked what led to his departure from ADRENALINE MOB, the band featuring Russell Allen (vocals; also of SYMPHONY X) and Mike Orlando (guitar), Portnoy said: “I’m very proud of the album I made with ADRENALINE MOB and I think that there was really a great chemistry there; it was a great band. I was definitely behind it. I spent two years of my life developing it and trying my best. But at the end of the day, I came out of DREAM THEATER wanting to do a lot of different things, and I wasn’t ready to commit exclusively to any one band. I had just spent 25 years with one band — and side projects, obviously, but committed to one band. And I said right from the beginning I was gonna plant many different musical seeds and see which grew, and that would kind of dictate where I would go and what I would do. And I spent a good solid two years giving my all to ADRENALINE MOB. But it only blossomed a little; I kept waiting for it to truly blossom and waiting for touring opportunities to come around, which never happened, and waiting for certain things to happen that never happened, so when it came time for them to start to want to do a new record, it’s, like, well, I have five months of THE WINERY DOGS dates on the calendar, so I had to make a decision; I couldn’t be in two places at the same time. Luckily, up until now, I’ve been able to juggle all these different things and make the schedules work out, but finally it came to a head where it’s, like, ‘OK, do I do a record with ADRENALINE MOB or do I tour with THE WINERY DOGS?’ And it’s, like, well, ADRENALINE MOB is not really growing fast enough. I don’t have time to get into a van and play to a hundred people a night for the next ten years to develop this when I have other opportunities and things like THE WINERY DOGS and other things that are offering opportunities and situations that I need to follow through with. So I haf to make a decision, and one shoe had to drop, and unfortunately, it happened to be ADRENALINE MOB.”

He continued: “[They’re a] great band, and I would have loved to have done more if they could have worked around my schedule, but I understand that they wanna keep working. So I had to make a decision and THE WINERY DOGS has a lot of buzz and opportunity and possibility and potential, so I didn’t want to not give it a fair chance.”

In a recent interview with Brazil’s “Wikimetal”, Allen stated about Portnoy‘s departure from ADRENALINE MOB: “He’s been, obviously, real busy with THE WINERY DOGS, which is his next band that he’s doing. The truth of it is we wanna keep working, we wanna keep doing ADRENALINE MOB and we don’t wanna wait around for Mike to have the time [to put into ADRENALINE MOB]. And he doesn’t know when he will have the time again, so that’s really what’s going down. Mike Portnoy was asked to be in the band by myself. Me and Orlando had already written all the material, so [ADRENALINE MOB‘s debut album] ‘Omertá’ was completely finished before Mike joined the act. And it’s a bummer, but he’s got his sights on other things, and he’s not gonna stick around. So we wish him the best of luck, but the MOB‘s gotta go on.”

ADRENALINE MOB‘s most recent touring and recording lineup also included DISTURBED bassist John Moyer

ADRENALINE MOB released “Covertá”, an eight-track EP featuring cover versions of some of the group’s favorite songs, on March 12.

Richard Bienstock of Guitar World recently conducted an interview with MEGADETH mainman Dave Mustaine and guitarist Chris Broderick. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow below.

Guitar World: You’ve stated publicly that you feel Chris is the best guitarist you’ve ever played with.

Mustaine: He’s such an enigma. What Chris is capable of doing and what he does are two totally different things. He could do a mind-blowing, over-the-fretboard seven-string solo for six minutes. But he can also play something incredibly melodic. You need to be able to play what fits the song. And that’s the cool thing about the journey we’ve been on together: we’ve learned a lot about each other as people and learned a lot from each other as players. And when it comes to solos, especially for a band like this, you gotta think about it. You gotta really think about where you’re going. You can’t just do scales and sweeps. That said, the guy can do 800 notes in four bars if he wants to.

Guitar World: Chris, how does it feel to hear Dave say things like that?

Broderick: It’s always very humbling, because he’s worked with a lot of incredible guitarists. Every past player in MEGADETH has brought something great to the table, and I think I’m lucky to be counted among them. But as far as how I work with Dave, in a way he makes it easy. The type of personality I am, I like to have a direction and a path and to know what I’m doing. And Dave has such a clear idea of what he wants that I don’t have to deal with a lot of decisions. I just pick up my guitar, put it on and play the songs.

Guitar World: As much as the band explores new territory on “Super Collider”, there are also some vintage MEGADETH moments. [MEGADETH bassist] Dave Ellefson has said that parts of the new record reminded him of “Killing Is My Business… and Business Is Good!”, and you can certainly hear that on something like the second half of “Dance In The Rain”.

Broderick: Definitely. When I hear a rhythm like the one at the end of “Dance In The Rain”, I start thinking about songs like “Rattlehead” [from “Killing Is My Business…”] and all of that older stuff that has so much angst to it. I definitely draw from that. I think there’s a direct line to those parts. They have that same mood. That same aggression.

Mustaine: But you know, when I’m writing stuff, I don’t think, This sounds like it’s from this era. I don’t have the ability to think like that. I wish I could. God, I’d go back to “Rust In Peace” and write another one! Because I was listening to it the other day and I thought, Man, what the fuck was I thinking when I wrote that? Because I know my limitations and shit, and I listen to the title track and I think, That was a lucky day!

Guitar World: Along those lines, you’ve been doing some of the old albums onstage for a few years now, first with the “Rust In Peace” 20th anniversary tour and more recently for a similar celebration for “Countdown To Extinction”.

Mustaine: It’s like a big giant circle. We were actually mixing the “Countdown” live DVD at the same time we were doing “Super Collider”. And the interesting thing is, I was listening to those songs and thinking they’re just as relevant today. Take “Psychotron”, and think about all the stuff that’s going on now with drones [unmanned combat vehicles]. So I don’t feel that there’s such a big stretch between then and now with this band. The only time I experience the passage of time is when I try to sing some of those songs. My voice doesn’t go that high anymore!

Former PANTERA and current DOWN frontman Philip Anselmo was interviewed on episode 56 of “Kill Your Radio”. You can now listen to the chat using the widget below.

Anselmo‘s first-ever solo album, “Walk Through Exits Only”, sold around 8,700 copies in the United States in its first week of release to debut at position No. 35 on The Billboard 200 chart.

Produced by Anselmo and Michael Thompson, and recorded over the past couple of years at Philip‘s New Orleans studio, Nodferatu’s Lair, with his band THE ILLEGALS — guitarist Marzi Montazeri (ex-SUPERJOINT RITUAL) and José Manuel Gonzales — “Walk Through Exits Only” is abrasive, aggressive, anthemic and 100% Anselmo.

Asked why he felt the need to start another band outside of DOWN, Anselmo told The Washington Times: “If you look at DOWN, we’re made up of three different bands, EYEHATEGOD and CROWBAR and whatever the fuck Pepper‘s [Keenan, guitar] doing, you know; he does a lot of different things. So, we have this flexibility of freedom and dead time is lame. Instead of starting some fucking other band, you know, branding it with a name and having to have people buy into a whole new name, this is something I wanted to do for the long term and something I can do long term because I don’t want any other fucking projects. That’s the beauty of having a solo band. I can really do what I want. So, ‘Walk Through Exits Only’ is one expression of music. We have another EP coming out in October that’s really completely different than anything that I’ve put out. And then we’re gonna get even more different and base it off the fuckin’ mood I’m in, you know? Jesus, It could be an all-acoustic, spoon-playing, flute-playing fuckin’, oh man, any type of fuckin’ music. I can do it if I feel like doing it. The only two bands I’m in right now, tangibly that I’m going to be working with and putting out records with is DOWN and the solo band. So, it’s easy.”

Anselmo also spoke about his forthcoming autobiography, tentatively titled “Mouth For War: Pantera, Pain, & Pride – Heavy Metal Highs, Drugged Out Lows, & The Battle For My Life”, for which he secured a deal last year with Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, senior editor at Simon & Schuster‘s Gallery Books imprint. BloodyDisgusting.com writer Corey Mitchell will co-author the book, which is described as “a no-holds-barred look inside of Philip‘s brain, his history with PANTERA, the loss of his best-friend, Dimebag Darrell, and an unflinching examination into the downward spiral of pain and drug addiction that nearly cost him his life.”

Asked what fans might be surprised to see in the book, Anselmo said: “There’s a lot of stories and a very, very interesting journey to fuckin’ even get to the PANTERA chapters. It took quite a while and quite a lot of different craziness in my life to even fuckin’ get to the point to where I was able to join PANTERA. So, a lot of shit happened before PANTERA and then obviously the PANTERA days were fucking insane in their own way. Since the death of Dimebag and the breakup of PANTERA before that, a whole lot of shit has happened, as well, both horrific and pretty damn fucking good.”

He continued: “These days, man, you know, it’s like I’m ten years clean from any fucking hard drugs at all and fuckin’ haven’t touched a drop of whiskey since 2001. Honestly, there’s a big, I guess, educational, if you want to put it like that, portion of the book that shows there’s somewhat of a ray of light even at the fuckin’ lamest part of your life or the lowest part of your life. If people can learn from me, good, good for them. It’s gonna be an interesting book.”

In the brand new issue of U.K.’s Metal Hammer magazine, the members of KORN discuss the return of guitarist Brian “Head” Welch to the band seven years after he quit the group to become a born-again Christian.

Asked about the harsh words that were spoken on both sides when Welch left, KORN singer Jonathan Davis said: “Well, he was just cuckoo with religious stuff. I’ve seen people go through it, and he was kicking speed so obviously he’s not gonna be right in the head for a while. Him getting all crazy Christian and stuff, what it really did was save his life, so I don’t give a fuck. I’ve had too many people around me die from drugs and I wouldn’t want that to happen. Him and Reggie [KORN bassist Reginald ‘Fieldy’ Arvizu] are born-again Christians, that’s fine. I don’t choose sides, I’ve got Christian friends and Satanist friends.”

According to Davis, no one needed persuading that Head should be back in the band. “I think everyone was on board with it,” the singer said. “Me and [guitarist] Munky were thinking, ‘Is he gonna take off again? Is he fucking crazy?’ But he just came back and he was normal Head. He left a long time ago and this is a different band now, so he’s getting used to different things. He had to go and do his thing and we went off in another direction creatively. Another thing was Head wanted to come and check things out to see if we were all partying still. He wanted to make sure he wouldn’t fall off the wagon because everyone was partying, but we all stopped a long time ago. What I’d give just to be able to do that again, drink and do drugs, and wake up feeling fine, but you get those three-, four-day hangovers. I had them at 28, that’s why I had to stop.”

Welch spoke about whether he had any reserations about rejoining KORN, telling Metal Hammer, “I heard Jonathan was having a hard time, and that made me have second thoughts if he’s not all there. But I talked to him, and since I’ve been back he’s come a long way. He was on all this medication and he was in a dark place. Ever since this year he’s come out of it. I ended up at a KORN concert and I felt the connection with the crowd and with my friends in KORN; it was just really emotional. Then Munky asked me back in and I felt it was time.”

He added: “It was the first time I’d seen him or spoken to him in eight years. Everyone would call Munky their best friend, he’s just that type of guy, but when he started drinking he turned into the opposite of what he was. When I was with him at that concert he looked like the guy I used to hang out with.”

Asked what it means to KORN having Head back in the band, Munky said: “It’s a lot of different things and they’re all positive, starting with having a chilghood friend back in our family. I wanted to make sure we stayed friends and have him back in my life. It was something that everybody wanted me to ask and it was only right that it should come from me. I think time heals most of that, between when he left the band and those words were said. We’ve all gone through those stupid-ass moments where we just regret a lot of things that we’ve done or said. It’s sort of like, ‘It’s OK, it’s all good.’ It’s about forgiveness and compassion.”

SF Weekly recently spoke to BLACK SABBATH guitarist Tony Iommi about the making of the band’s new album, “13” — the first in 35 years to feature Tony, singer Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler. Asked what it was like working with legendary producer Rick Rubin, who is notorious for being very “in and out” of the studio while records are being made, Iommi said: “At first I was a bit apprehensive, because I didn’t know how he was going to work. We all were. But at the end of the day, yeah, I think it worked out really good. It’s good to have somebody in control as such, because to control this band, it’s hard when you’re one of the members. I really did stipulate that when we got together that we need a producer. It’s alright saying, ‘Oh yeah, we can do it ourselves,’ which we probably could. But you get into this stage where you lose track again, and you start, ‘Well, I’ll put an overdub on that, and I’ll put a harmony on that,’ and it gets out of control. By having somebody like Rick, he kept us to the basic thing. I actually did put a couple of harmonies on when he wasn’t there. But then he took ’em off.”

He added: “Rick wanted me to play the solos live, which I haven’t done for years. I’ve normally put the backing track down, then go in and put solos down. And I’m going, ‘Well, I don’t really know what I’m going to play yet.’ And he’d go, ‘Well, just try something.’ He encouraged me to try different things, and that’s what happened on ‘Age Of Reason’ and ‘Damaged Soul’.”

Iommi also spoke about the riff-writing process for “13”, saying about his endless backlog of material: “I have got a closet full of riffs, but I very rarely go back to them, to be honest. I always think, ‘Well, I’ll put this away, and I’ll put that down,’ and when it comes time to do something, I always seem to come up with something new. For this album, I did write purposely, so I could have an armory of songs or ideas to play to the other guys. I didn’t want to walk into a room and everybody look at each other and go, ‘What we gonna do now?'”

He continued: “I have to feel it in myself; it comes from within. You do a riff and you think, ‘Oh yeah, I really like this.’ I’ll go back to [it] and listen to it again and go, ‘Yeah, I like this.’ I mean, I’ve done thousands and thousands of them. I can walk into the studio and play for a couple of days and just come up with no end of riffs. I might not ever use them.”

You might have noticed that we’re a bit excited about Download being just over a week away. We had a chat with Freddy from Chthonic, and it’s only made us more hyped up, to be honest.

Hi, Freddy! How many times have you been to Donington?

Once. We played on Second Stage at noon in 2011.

What’s your favourite Donington memory?

Our set was very early so we didn’t expect many people to come see us, but there were thousands of people waiting for us! We were surprised and energized right away, even though we just woke up!

What are you most looking forward to about playing this year?

Seeing a lot of bands!

Which bands on the bill are you most excited about?

Gogol Bordello. This is why I like Download so much! It’s not just a festival with one music genre, we can always find different things to do and music to enjoy!

What can we expect from your set?

New songs with the Oriental Orchestra. This is the first time we have performed with the Oriental Orchestra in a foreign country.

What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen at a festival?

Excrement all over the place!

If you could only pack five things to take with you, what would they be?

Hoody, rain shoes, towels, cap, smartphone. I think I could survive in a festival with these things, but if I can have more I would love to have a laptop with me because I’m a nerd…. haha! No, just kidding, no computer!

Looking for a free Stone Sour track? You’ve come to the right place. Here’s Gravesend from House Of Gold & Bones Part 2.

Corey Taylor says of the song: “The protagonist is being assaulted by a lot of different memories and different things. He finds himself in a cemetery, Gravesend. He’s given the answers slowly but surely – and he’s not so happy with the answers he gets.

“In one way it’s retroactive as far as seeing things for the first time. On the other hand he’s having to fight the reaction he’s having. In a lot of ways it’s the culmination of the journey, and it leads to the final act.”

House Of Gold & Bones Part 2 is out on Monday April 8 – and if you preorder you’ll receive an instant download of Do Me A Favor.

Stone Sour will play at this year’s Download Festival on June 16 as part of a European tour.

As we reported last week, former Killswitch Engage singer Howard Jones is about to return with a brand new band also featuring John Sankey, drummer with technical death metallers Devolved and All Shall Perish guitarist, Francesco Artusato!

Coming together during the latter stages of 2012, the band – who will reveal their name at a later date – promises a new direction for Howard.

“It turned from bare-bones musical ideas into something that surpassed any of our expectations,” says the man himself. “It went from something we thought was going to be a fun, heavy project into something very real.”

“It’s a different style of music for me,” he adds. “It’s heavy as anything any of us are known for but I get to do some different things people won’t expect. I’ve been singing almost all my life. Being around good songwriters and musicians in my former bands really helped mold me into who I am now.”

Interesting indeed. Meanwhile, Killswitch continue to roll on, with Disarm The Descent landing on April 1 via Roadrunner and Killswitch playing the following UK dates soon after:

Jordan Fish, keys: “This was one of the first ones we wrote, so it was a bit of an experiment, writing in a new way.”

Oliver Sykes, vocals: “This was the turning point; it was the first one that Jordan really got his teeth into, and obviously you can hear that because it’s very heavy on the electronica. It was floating around for ages, and I think it really started to shine when we took my vocal lead and used it [on the keyboard parts] for the chorus.”

Jordan: “We tried loads of different things that were shit, but that really worked, and as soon as we did it we knew that this would open the album.”

The House Of Wolves

Lee Malia, guitar: “We just wanted a faster, more exciting song I guess, with more of a Suicide Season vibe to it.”

Oli: “Lyrically it’s all about religion. Before we wrote this album, I was in a position where I was asked to believe in God, to get better, and I just couldn’t understand that, so that’s what I wrote from. It’s about [how] there’s no salvation, there’s no one that’s gonna save you. You’ve got to get better because you want it for yourself, your family or your friends, not because you believe there’s a man in the sky.”

Empire (Let Them Sing)

Matt N: “This is my favourite track!”

Jordan: “It’s more of a groove-based track compared to the first two.”

Oli: “It’s quite Deftones-inspired, the feel. Lyrically it’s one of my favourites, because it’s one of the few where I wrote the lyrics before I wrote the melodies. Most of the time I’ve found out that that doesn’t work, but it gave me a lot of freedom.”

Sleepwalking

Oli: “I’d say this is probably one of the more commercial songs on the record. It’s gonna be our second single from the album, and I think that, as a unit, it’s one of our best-written songs.”

Go To Hell For Heaven’s Sake

Oli: “We were after a faster, more fun song to pick up the pace, and this is probably the funnest track on the CD!”

Shadow Moses

Oli: “Everyone’s head this one!”

Matt N: “It’s probably the ‘safest’ track on the album, isn’t it?”

Oli: “We actually never intended for it to be a single! We had that Warped Tour show last year and thought it’d be a good song to play and maybe put out for free, to bridge the gap between our last record and this new one, and it’s good to play live. But, management said ‘This song’s too good, you can’t put that out for free!’ It came out a lot better than we ever anticipated, but I still think it’s the ‘safest’ track on the record. We also thought having the single as track six was a great statement, because it showed the level of this album. Most bands have the single as the first track on their album.”

And The Snakes Start To Sing

Oli: “This was the last one we finished, and we actually had a nightmare with this chorus. I never intended to sing on it – we hired a choir! A full-on choir; I thought it would be really cool to have a choir singing this spooky chorus, but it all ended up a bit Broadway, so it didn’t work. So Jordan said that he thought I should try and sing it. It was the one song on the album that we were all a bit unsure about, but when we put [the chorus] in, it completed it.”

Jordan: “It was cool, because, being in the studio at the beginning, I don’t think that he would have sung that anywhere near as well, but because we worked on the vocals so much, by the end his voice was good enough to carry it.”

Seen It All Before

Oli: “This is definitely the most “poppy” song on the album.”

Matt N: “It started out sounding like a really 90s, Euro thing that Jordan made. Ha ha ha! And it took all of us a bit of time to get used to the sound of it, but now that it’s all mixed and stuff, it sounds amazing. When you strip it all back, that 90s Euro sound is still there, ha ha ha!”

Anti-VIst

Oli: “It started off with the lyrics! I came downstairs one morning and said to Jordan, ‘I’ve just come up with the most nu metal mosher lyrics of all time!’ Ha ha ha! He was like, ‘What are you talking about?’, so I went, ‘Middle fingers up, if you don’t give a fuck!’, and we both laughed.” It was almost a joke, like we were never gonna do it, but as we wrote it I started to find the lyrics to not make it cheesy. It about ‘Slacktivists’; online people that just talk shit on Twitter, and ‘Like this if you want to get Obama to die’ or whatever. It’s loads of shit; people think they’re making a difference nowadays just because they’re sat on their fat arses with ill-informed ‘facts’. They think they know everything and that they’re making a difference, and it’s bullshit.

“So the lyrics to this one are quite sarcastic, but if you want to make a difference, you have to do more than just sit at your computer. It’s not saying ‘Don’t care about the world’, it’s saying, ‘Don’t think you care about the world and that you’re better than people if you’re doing fuck all’. If you really believe in all that, you’ve got to get up and do more.”

Crooked Young

Matt N: “This was one of the last songs we wrote.”

Jordan: “Yeah, we started with the strings.”

Oli: “Jordan really wanted to do something like It Never Ends [from 2010’s There Is A Hell…], and we thought that was one of the songs that worked best on the last album, including that addition of an orchestra. We thought we could carry that on, so we wanted to keep that vibe. It’s still one of the heaviest tracks on the record, and it’s got a great chorus. I’m really excited to play that one live.”

Hospital ForSouls

Oli: “It kind of ties in with the concept of the album, and if anyone buys a physical copy, they’ll see that there’s almost like a track-by-track on it. Each song is a step, or a process, to another place…it’s all wrapped up if you go and buy the album! And it’s my dad’s favourite track!”